Jumping Jellyfish & Peaceful Panthers on Jupiter Island

We headed north the other day for a family road trip. Uncle Andy was off to go marathon canoe training with a group of people on Jupiter Island so we all jumped in the car to tag along. After a MUCH too early start for some of us (up at 6:30 and out the door by 7:00) we all managed to wake up and get into the fun.

After dropping Andy off we headed over to Blowing Rocks Preserve. It is a Nature Conservancy site that has a great reputation for successfully modelling full scale coastal habitat restoration. There is a coastal limestone ridge that runs along the beach that makes it a neat place to explore at both low and high tides. At low tide you can run along the beach and check out the structures from underneath. At high tide, they turn into blow holes with the surf pushing through them. We were aiming for the low tide experience but unfortunately it was a high wind day so the tide never went out as fully as anticipated. As always, we still managed to have fun – we ran along the beach avoiding the jellyfish and then ran along the tide trying not to get wet (some were more successful than others…).

We headed back into town to meet up with Andy and have a lunch picnic at the Jupiter Island Lighthouse. It is a really well maintained historic site. We had hoped to just walk up the stairs and check out the view but that’s not an option and we all voted that the tour price was a bit steep.

We decided to head west over to the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary and check out the animals. It is by donation only and a great place to spend a few hours on a sunny afternoon. The trails are easy to walk and the animals are well displayed. We found the above bee hive on the black bear trail (makes sense and all – bees… honey…). In addition to having animals for engagement and education, the sanctuary also does rescue and rehabilitation.

All of their animals come from rescues or seizures. They have 6 panthers and they were all seized from people that were trying to keep them as pets or for other purposes???